Henri Rousseau: A Modern "Primitive" in Avant-Garde Paris

Henri Rousseau was a self-taught painter who captured the imagination of the later Surrealists with his fantastical world of dark forests inhabited by strange animals and exotic people. Employed in a boring bureaucratic job as a customs inspector, he retired early with a small government pension in order to pursue painting full time. Later discovered by Picasso and lionized by the Parisian avant-garde, Rousseau represented a person deeply committed to exploring the darkest regions of that overgrown, tangled jungle of the human unconsious. An important Rousseau retrospective exhibition is currently at the Barnes Foundation.

Presented by:  Dr. Dennis Raverty is an Associate Professor at New Jersey City University where he teaches 19th and 20th-century art history, the art of West Africa, the diaspora and African American art, as well as the Renaissance and Baroque periods in Europe. An award-winning teacher, Raverty lives in New York City, and is currently co-authoring a book on American illustration with Dennis Dittrich, former president of the Society of Illustrators.